fandrogyne | Reading

1. Yesterday I was feeling majorly stressed out by multiple things, but today I'm feeling much better.

2. One thing was this whole pee issue with Jasper. ( long )

3. I have also been majorly stressed about work recently. Well, it's actually been for several years, but I'm feeling it more and more, not necessarily because things are more stressful but just because of the buildup, and the whole world in general is adding so much stress as well. I'd been thinking more and more seriously about what I want to do when this project I'm working on ends. I don't think I want to go back to area manager as that is a pretty stressful position, especially now that the economy is not great and the stores are struggling. I would also like to be closer to home, so I've been thinking about stepping down to a department leader position at the store closest to me.

( also long )

So just making that decision, even if it doesn't change anything right now, has made me less stressed out.

4. Molly was writhing around with that toy just moments before I took the pic.

USJ has a 1.5 day pass, which seemed like the right fit for us. Honestly, I think the single day would have been fine, too, but this let us have the first afternoon to sort of scope out the park and get the lay of the land so we could navigate better on the next day. If we go again, I'd just do the single day, since we're now familiar with the layout.

( Exploring the park )

1. The weather recently has been nice and overcast. It's been very nice for taking walks and not getting overheated.

2. Tuxie's a sweetie guy.

1. We went down to the bike shop today and bought ebikes! We both got the Velotric Discover 3 in green (Carla's is a large and mine's a regular, so still easy to tell apart despite the same color). It's a fairly small shop, so they had to order them, but we should be able to pick them up by the end of next week.

2. Across the street from the bike shop is a pizza place that looked enticing, so we went over there for lunch after. We got three slices to share, but their slices are huge and cut up into three pieces each, so we had some to take home.

One was acorn squash, one was potato, sage, and truffle, and the last was proscuitto, pineapple, and jalapeño. All three were delicious, but the potato might be my favorite. I wish more places had potato pizza around here.

3. A couple months ago I saw a post about how Microsoft was going to be raising the price of the Office 365 subscription due to all their unnecessary AI stuff, but that the non-subscription version of Office was on sale. Since I don't need more than the basics, the non-subscription version really is fine and I'm not sure why I didn't get that to begin with. So I bought it and then as it got closer to my renewal time, I went to cancel the subscription only to find I couldn't. I purchased this over ten years ago and did the subscription through the Excel app itself, which apparently charged me through Best Buy, but didn't actually set me up a Best Buy account or anything. I've been paying for it every year through auto-renew, but have no access to any subscriptions on Best Buy, and according to Microsoft, since it was purchased through them, that's the only way to manage my subscription. Best Buy chat and phone customer service was unable to help with this weird issue, and just suggested I cancel the credit card so that the next auto-renew bounces. So yesterday I reported my card lost and now I have the annoyance of having to redo the card info on any sites I was using it on, but at least I won't have this stupid subscription anymore.

4. Speaking of subscriptions, I finally bit the bullet and cancelled Netflix. We really never use it but I keep thinking about some Netflix shows like Disenchantment that I want to watch again, but they raised their prices again and I really don't want to pay $20 a month just because at some point I might want to rewatch one or two shows. So it's done. If we want to rewatch something, we can torrent it.

5. I put our old bikes up on Nextdoor last week and got a flurry of scammy responses about Carla's bike but no real takers (and none at all for mine), so I put them both up on Craigslist today and mine sold right away. I paid like $400 for it originally but it's been 12 years so even though it's in great shape, I just listed it for $100.

6. One of the Little Libraries we passed on our walk tonight had some puzzles in it so I brought two of them home with me. Not so exciting that I would have bought them on my own, but for free puzzles, they seemed nice enough.

7. It's hard to see, but Chloe's got a little blep going on.

1. It's the weekend! I have been feeling very stressed about work lately and now I have two days where I don't have to think about it. Yay!

2. Last year Carla got a Franz Ferdinand CD box set that came with a reusable cloth shopping bag and it has short handles and also a long strap so it can be worn crossbody and it has become my favorite shopping bag because it's so comfortable! Shoulder straps always fall off my shoulder or are just uncomfortable but this is like wearing nothing at all (queue sexy Flanders meme).

Anyway, it was in the wash yesterday when I wanted to use it (cat pee again...our fault for leaving a pile of shopping bags out on an area where he'd peed before, even if it had been cleaned with enzyme cleaner) so I went looking online for any similar crossbody shopping bags so I could have a backup in the future and while the pickings were very slim, I did find one that looked about right and it arrived today and is perfect! It's this bag, specifically in the blue cat print, if it doesn't go directly to that one. It's a smallish size, which is what I want, and folds down super small and doesn't have a bunch of extra pockets or anything. I just want a small, simple bag with a crossbody strap, but apparently no one else does because this is like the only one I found that was just right (the others were all too large or too complicated or both).

3. I love Gemma's curly tail so much.

Recently Finished
My Life in Propaganda
Memoir about growing up in communist Poland + the author's thoughts on propaganda in general. This was less interesting than I thought it would be, though I found the parts about how communism worked in Poland in particular to be very interesting and I wish there had been more of that.

Who Is Vera Kelly?
This is told in two timelines, the past when the MC is a teenager and the present when she's a spy in Argentina in the 60s. The first half or so of this was honestly so boring. I did enjoy it more in the second half, but it was really dragging and it didn't help that I was reading this on the Libby app and having connectivity issues while traveling (idk why it won't let me download the file to my phone). It seems like the second book might be more interesting, so I am going to check it out.

Killers of a Certain Age
Four middle aged women are retired assassins who now find themselves targeted by the organization they used to work with. This was a lot of fun. Definitely looking forward to the second book.

Ghost Roast
YA graphic novel about a girl whose dad is a ghost buster type and she herself (unbeknownst to him) can see and even speak with ghosts. This was cute but her friends were pretty awful and I kept expecting that they would either change and apologize for their behavior or she would realize they were awful and dump them, but neither of those happened.

Shiny Misfits
Middle grade graphic novel about a girl with cerebral palsy who loves to dance and is obsessed with going viral and becoming famous. The premise sounded cute but the pacing was all over the place and the dialogue was always trying to be quippy and just came off as obnoxious. Everything was just dialed up to 11 and it was kind of exhausing to read. The random talking (in rhymes, no less) cat also came off as another element that was supposed to be wacky and random but just fell flat for me. I was expecting to love this but was just disappointed. Very cute art, though.

Goodbye, Dolly!
I'm just going to c&p the blurb here: "When celebrity clone sheep Dolly dies, her adult Nepo Lambs come together for the first time to forge an identity as second-generation clones, confront their upbringing, and process their grief around their famous, trailblazing mother. Unreliably narrated by the ghost of Dolly in a mixed media style, GOODBYE, DOLLY! explores the connection, disconnection, hijinks, and despair of six siblings trying to put together the pieces of their broken family and forge a path to their wooly future."

I found this in a Little Library down the street from me and thought it could be interesting. Got home and found multiple copies of it, along with some other works by the author, in my Little Library, so I assume the author is local and trying to promote her stuff. I had to create the entry on goodreads and I feel bad that the first review it now has on there is two stars, but this was just too weird for me lol.

The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos vol. 3

1. So, I've talked before about our horrible stove and how hard it is to clean. Also only two of the four burners work. But it's a built-in, so in order to replace it, we'd have to redo the counter, and then if you're redoing the counter, well, the walls and cupboards are also old and pretty gross, so you'd want to do them, too, and then if you're doing the lower cupboards, you'd want to do the flooring as well, as it's also old and gross and coming up from the floor. So it would be a whole kitchen remodel, which would be really stressful for the cats, so we don't want to do that any time soon.

Anyway, we also have a little stand-alone induction burner, but hardly ever use it because there's no counter space. The other day Carla mentioned something about putting a board or something over the stove and just using it as a counter and putting the induction burner there instead, and I thought, well, they must make something like that. So I did some searching and found they do indeed make stove covers, but our stove is not a standard size (we need at least 36" wide), so there's not really anything that's a perfect fit, but I was able to find one that was 30" wide and open on the sides, so it can fit over the stove and just a bit pokes out on each side. It doesn't look as nice as if it were fully covered, but it does the job. Now I just need to get used to using the induction burner as I've pretty much only ever used gas, so that will take some adjustment.

2. I have worked from home all week and was planning to go in tomorrow but decided I really don't want to, so I'm staying home tomorrow, too.

3. Jasper found an exciting new spot! It can only be reached by climbing up on someone who is sitting on the toilet, but he has also recently gotten into the habit of wanting upsies when Carla is on the toilet, so he got his chance lol.

Monday we had to check out of our hotel in Umeda and go over to Universal Studios, where we would stay another two nights before going to Tokyo.

( Everything except the USJ trips themselves, which will be in separate posts )

1. When Carla called the second plumbers yesterday, they told her they'd be out between 12 and 2 today, but then immediately after sent a message saying 10-12 instead, and they were indeed here by around 10:45. They got the water heater replaced quickly and even cleaned a lot of the cobwebs and weeds out of the shed, and they adjusted the placement of the new one so it sits further back inside and just generally looks better, so that was nice! It cost about ten times more than when they replaced the previous one eight years ago, but that was still significantly cheaper than the first guys quoted us, so I'll take it.

2. I've had the same headphones for my desktop PC for ages and the coating has started to flake off for at least the past year or so, but then yesterday I noticed the foam was now coming out of place as well. But! We have a pair of exactly the same ones that Carla had bought (actually she got hers first and I liked them and got a pair myself) but eventually replaced with better quality ones, and they were still in perfectly good condition, so I just switched to those and don't have to buy a new pair. The things about them that bothered her don't bother me, and I don't use headphones at my desk that much anyway, so I'm fine with sticking with these until they eventually wear out, too.

3. Carla made hamburg the other night for dinner and we had some patties leftover and decided to make sandwiches with them tonight. It's basically meatloaf with a slightly different flavor profile, and I love meatloaf sandwiches. We used tonkatsu sauce instead of ketchup, and while I would have gone for cabbage or lettuce, all we had on hand was some arugula and I'd literally just gotten back from walking to the store for something else, so we tried that and it worked really well.

4. I love his little crossed wrists!

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

1. Last night when I took a shower the water never got that hot, and I thought it odd because while Carla had taken a shower, it was hours before and should have warmed back up within 15-20 minutes. Then this morning I did dishes and the water never got above warm-ish, and that was even having it fully on hot and not using the cold tap at all.

I went out to check the water heater only to find that sometime between when it was installed (eight years ago, according to my journal) and now, the sort of shed/add-on thing that it's inside had shifted slightly so that the door was now sitting below the adjoining back steps and couldn't open at all. Thankfully the door is wood, and we have a small saw, so I sawed off the bottom bit of the door so it could open (it is old and crappy anyway, so this is not damaging it or anything).

The water heater has a thing on the front that helpfully tells you what the issue is if the light is red and blinks X number of times. It was blinking 7 times, which is gas or valve failure, so we called a plumber and they said that replacing the broken part would cost like $400 plus over a thousand in labor, which seemed ridiculous. A new one is about $800, and they said we could go get one and they could install it, but they were quoting like $1800 for the replacement and removal, which again seems ridiculous. In my journal entry eight years ago, we were charged for one hour labor and free removal, which was a different plumber. I know prices have gone up a lot in the intervening years but that seems excessive.

So since I didn't think we'd be able to get a water heater in our car to bring it home anyway, I told them we'd just pay for their diagnostics today and get back to them. I ordered a new water heater from Home Depot and they delivered it today and we called the plumber from last time to have them come out tomorrow. They couldn't give us an estimate over the phone, but I feel it can't help but be cheaper than today's guys.

Anyway, we still have some warm-ish water we can at least use for washing dishes, and maybe just save the showers for tomorrow after they install the new one.

2. I was already planning on working from home today, which worked out well for all the plumbing stuff.

3. First puzzle finished since getting back from vacation:

This one was a lot of fun. I think when I bought it I saw some other similar ones, so I might have to check those out.

4. I've been sleeping better and waking up at my usual time again for several days in a row now, so I'm feeling a lot better about that. Now that I have this morning walk routine, it was really throwing me off to be waking up so much later.

5. Cutie Molly.

1. I got my hair cut this morning. It's been about six weeks instead of the usual four because four would have been when we were in Japan, and she didn't have any (convenient for me) openings last week. I actually didn't mind the length it had gotten to, but I went ahead and set my next appointment for four weeks anyway.

2. I worked from home today and am considering working from home every day this week except Friday, as I really don't have anything requiring me to go in. I had multiple snuggle sessions with Jasper today, which is a pretty good reason to stay home, IMO!

3. Tuxie was out in the cat house this morning. I'm always so happy to see him using it.

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

I am struggling to remain positive about (some) things at the moment, but here are three good things that have happened in the last twenty four hours, and one that happened over the last week:

1. A regular customer told me I was being very diplomatic when talking to another customer about food (he kept saying he shouldn't have certain food because it would make him fat, and I was like, "Who am I to judge what you want to eat?" and back and forth for a bit). I try not to be judgemental about other people (though sometimes it's very hard), so I'm glad that came across to someone outside of the conversation.

2. I also talked with another regular customer about video games! He'd heard me telling one of the managers I allegedly had good reactions because I play games*, so then he was asking me what I liked playing, and I told him about my console collection (he's a lot younger than me, and his eyes went wide when he realised how many I actually own).

3. I bought an e-reader??? I don't know if this a positive thing, but I realised I have so many .pdfs I just don't look at, ever. And that includes books I've bought. Also a whole bunch of RPG stuff, including the indie things I've bought from itch.io

I got a Kobo Clara Colour 16Gb model (we don't do Amazon in this house - yes, Kindles are cheaper, but Jeff Bezos already has WAY too much money). I am delighted to see that it is waterproof, which means if I take it out with me, it shouldn't matter if it gets rained on (though I would hope to keep it as dry as possible!) And I'm also delighted to learn that you can use Libby on it, which means I can access digital resources from my library!

4. At least three people said during the week they hadn't seen me lately, and were wondering if I was okay/if I'd left, and were pleased to see that I was still around and functional.

~

*I don't know how true this is - I don't feel like I do, but obviously I can't speak for anyone else.

Current Music: China Girl - David Bowie

1. It was really windy today! Also pretty sunny for most of the day, so I'm very glad we went to Disneyland yesterday rather than today. I'd much rather have an overcast day at the park.

2. Carla made hamburg for dinner tonight and it was very tasty. Plenty of leftovers, too.

3. Chloe yawn!

Sunday was Carla's birthday! We didn't do anything special...other than taking a trip to Japan lol.

( Meetup at Osaka Castle )

Bacon-gruyere wheel pastry, spinach feta pastry, lemon tart, a dozen eggs, strawberries, spring onions, potatoes, goat cheese curds, strawberries lemonade, cranberry beans, 4lbs of potatoes, shelled black walnuts, pecans, spicy garlic pistachios, apple schnitz, and Lucy Glo apples.

1. We had a nice morning at Disneyland. And we were out an hour or so longer than we were on Wednesday but no signs of any problems from Jasper.

2. The forecast said we might get a little rain today and we did get just a little. After we got back home, thankfully, but honestly even if we'd been out, it was just light sprinkling for maybe half an hour. There might be a bit more overnight, but doesn't seem to be any more on the horizon.

3. Both yesterday and today I woke up at 6:30 (first time since we got back home). 6-6:30 is my preferred wake up time to feel like I have enough time in the morning to take my walk and not feel rushed about breakfast, chores, etc. Hopefully it continues!

4. Round loaf.

Today was such a nice day. Mostly overcast and low temps, and not too bad crowds!

( Read more... )

You may or may not be interested, but I just bought a bundle of 511 (tt)rpgs in support of trans people in Idaho off itch.io for $5 (~£3.87 at the time of writing).

You may remember that I bought a bundle like this last year? It's the same person that has organised this one (I thought I recognised the username, and I was right!)

Anyway, there's six days or so left on it, and I only found it by chance this time - I've kept meaning to log back into itch for updates on games I already own, and I only just remembered today.

...I may need to buy more ink and paper for my printer, lol. [ETA: or actually buy an e-reader instead of whining to myself about not needing one /edit]

Current Music: Man on the Moon - REM

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The Fandrogyne

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2026 Universal Studios Trip #3 (4/6/26)

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2026 Japan Trip Part 4 (4/6-7)

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What Are You Playing Wednesday

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i'll give you televisions

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2026 Japan Trip Part 3 (4/5)

Farmer's Market -- 25 April 2026 (Lily of the Valley Day, 8th of Flowering, Year 234)

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2026 Disneyland Trip #21 (4/25/26)

mr andy kaufmann's gone wrestling

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